Ron Hynes (2 of 8)

David Myles and Rose Cousins (3 of 8)

Hosts David Myles and Rose Cousins welcome the crowd for the 25th East Coast Music Awards on Sunday. (ERIC WYNNE / Staff)

Bucky Adams award (4 of 8)

Venetia Adams, left, Anthony Adams and Susan Adams accept an award on behalf of their late father “Bucky” Adams at the East Coast Music Awards in Halifax on Sunday. (THE CANADIAN PRESS / Devaan Ingraham)

Rich Aucoin (5 of 8)

Rich Aucoin performs at the ECMAs. (ERIC WYNNE / Staff)

Meg Warren (6 of 8)

Meg Warren and Repartee perform at the ECMAs. (ERIC WYNNE / Staff)

Ashley MacIsaac (7 of 8)

Ashley MacIsaac plays at the East Coast Music Awards in Halifax on Sunday. (THE CANADIAN PRESS / Andrew Vaughan)

Charlie A'Court (8 of 8)

Charlie A'Court rocks out at the ECMAs. (ERIC WYNNE / Staff)

AT AN EVENT where the Atlantic Canadian music scene feels like one big family, it seems appropriate that the top winner at this week’s 25th anniversary East Coast Music Awards would be Rose Cousins.

On Sunday night at the gala awards show at Halifax’s Cunard Centre, the Prince Edward Island native added a solo recording of the year award to the folk recording and SOCAN songwriter of the year awards she picked up earlier in the week for her latest release, We Have Made a Spark.

After the smoke had cleared and the lights came back up, Cousins discussed an amazing year, which also blessed her with a Juno Award nomination, with reporters backstage.

“I feel like someone else watching this happen to me,” she said of the out-of-body experience of hosting, performing and being a winner at the same time. “It feels really cool, but the showing was so strong this year, the solo album award shocked me the most.”

Co-hosting the three-hour show was fellow singer-songwriter David Myles, who didn't pick up any trophies, but did have the pleasure of seeing Inner Ninja, his collaboration with Enfield rapper Classified, attain platinum sales status in Canada. The pair later reteamed on stage for the evening’s crowd-rousing finale.

At the gala itself, the multiple winners were Nova Scotia band the Stanfields, whose harder rocking second album Death & Taxes, produced by AC/DC engineer Mike Fraser, earned them group recording and Fans’ Choice entertainer of the year.

“It’s a mix of roots music and rock and roll, it’s not rocket science,” said Stanfields singer Jon Landry when asked about the band’s formula for success on the red carpet outside the Cunard Centre prior to the gala.

After winning the coveted entertainer prize, Landry was nearly speechless, thanking their fans for supporting “a scrappy bunch of bastards like us.”

Like its Truro-made, woolen undergarment namesake, the Stanfields provided some much-needed heat to a frigid outdoor East Coast Music Week kick-off concert in downtown Halifax’s Grand Parade on Thursday night, where they paid tribute to the late Maritime music icon Stompin’ Tom Connors with a rough ’n’ ready version of Sudbury Saturday Night.

As for the late plywood-splintering pioneer, Connors’ music was heard on stages all over town this week as performers paid tribute, and the gala itself started with a video tribute including rare footage from the early ’70s and a message dedicating the evening to his memory.

The night also included stirring tributes to the late Raylene Rankin, and Newfoundland’s Man of 1,000 Songs, Ron Hynes, who were given ECMA directors’ special achievement awards.

“It may not be polite to speak of God on Sunday night outside of church, but this has always been my altar,” said Hynes, pointing to the stage, “and I have always felt blessed.”

Still recovering from recent treatment for throat cancer, Hynes’ voice was hindered slightly as he proclaimed his respect for the real icons who inspired his songs; fishermen, farmers, those who had to head west for work and single mothers left with children to watch over.

“This has been a humbling experience,” Hynes said of his recent trials, “but to have the feeling that the whole country is in my corner, it feels pretty good.”

The late Halifax saxman Bucky Adams was the recipient of the Dr. Helen Creighton Lifetime Acheivement Award, for his role as a longtime standard bearer for blues and jazz, and as a supporter of up-and-coming musicians who followed in his wake.

“Probably his greatest legacy was that he understood that he had something to give back, and was always ready to donate his time and his music,” said Adams’ son Anthony backstage.

“Especially to the residents of Northwood Manor and Seniors’ Home, he saw how music could help them escape from whatever issues they had, get them moving and dancing them and set them free from whatever was binding them to their chairs.”

The evening’s other award winners included City of Lakes rocker Matt Mays, whose long-awaited release Coyote was named album of the year, the result of four years worth of writing and studio sequestering.

“A lot of sacrifices went into this, this is such a weird profession we find ourselves in,” said Mays to reporters after picking up his pewter treble clef. “I think of all the bands out there right now, driving through snowstorms, sleeping in the back of a Chevy van without seatbelts. We’ve all faced that danger countless times.

“That’s really the underbelly of the glitter and all that (crap), those bands and the studio engineers up until dawn making things sound right. These people deserve this more than I do.”

Pictou County also contributed a pair of winners: country star George Canyon’s clip for Saddle Up, picked as Fans’ Choice video of the year, and Dave Gunning’s These Hands, named song of the year.

With only six recording awards and three honourary awards handed out, there was plenty of time for music at the gala, which included spirited performances from Radio Radio, Rich Aucoin, Jimmy Rankin and Newfoundland bands Repartee and the Dardanelles, plus Cape Breton tributes from the Barra MacNeils, Natalie MacMaster, and a reunion of Ashley MacIsaac and his band the Kitchen Devils with Gaelic singer Mary Jane Lamond.

To mark the 25th anniversary of the East Coast Music Awards, which began in 1989 as the Maritime Music Awards a few blocks away in the Flamingo Cafe & Lounge, 13 artists were selected to be awarded with special awards honouring their influential careers. These giants of the Atlantic music scene included Cape Breton performers Matt Minglewood, Rita MacNeil, the Rankin Family, the Barra MacNeils, MacIsaac, MacMaster, John Gracie and Lamond.

“It’s quite the history we’ve had, since our first ECMAs at the Crazy Horse in Dartmouth, we were so naive about the business then, it’s remarkable for things to go the way they did,” said Jimmy Rankin to reporters, accompanied by his sister Heather.

“It is bittersweet to accept this without Raylene and John Morris, but it’s good to know they’ll always be remembered,” said Jimmy Rankin of his departed siblings while, as an apt coincidence, his Fare Thee Well Love could be heard from the hall, beautifully performed by Meaghan Smith and Erin Costelo.